The Ronn Guidi Foundation

Too bad Ronn is not teaching anymore! He had this magic about him. But I’m hearing really fabulous things about other teachers from my sister as well.
I took ballet from him, my middle sister did and now the baby sister. He’s amazing. Even if you don’t end up becoming a ballerina, no one can deny that Ballet is the foundation of dance. With it, it unlocks every form of dance Jazz, Hip-​hop, Hula, Tahitian… EVERYTHING…

A fantastic foundation for supporting the performing arts in the region. As a small child, I went to the Oakland Ballet Academy. The experience helped develop discipline, temperament, balance, grace and carriage not to mention planted the seeds for a love of the performing arts at an early age…
The original version of the organization had challenging times and has more recently been revitalized, helping in the resurgence of the Oakland Ballet’s performances. With Ron out of retirement enough to help keep the movement going, the spirits are up and the magic is even greater. Your support helps with the scholarships, the Oakland Youth Ballet Company, and bringing the performing arts to the diverse communities of the area for generations to come!

What a SUITE treat tonight!!!
Someone loves me because about two months ago, I happened to be sitting at my desk when an email from ticketmaster popped up announcing Nutcracker tickets were on sale at my fave local venue «The Paramount.» I spontaneously clicked the link within the email and found myself staring at an order for front row seats! My monitor read something like:
«The seats are available for purchase for 2:00 minutes»
After a mad scramble around the house to find some purchasing plastic, I made it in time and was now the owner of two front row and center tickets to the Nutcracker by Ronn Guidi’s Oakland Ballet company… whether I wanted to go or not. :)
Before last year, I had always heard about this «nutcracker» but hadn’t the foggiest idea of what a «nutcracker» was… other than a wooden soldier that had always kind of freaked me out. So, last year, the Benicia Ballet school did a performance here in town. The son and I checked it out and really enjoyed the show. But this year it was time to kick it up a notch. Without further adieu…
«Ronn Guidi’s Nutcracker by the Oakland Ballet Company» was amazing. First I had to get past being in the front row. Who even knew there was a lowered orchestra area and they would move up to eye level once the show began. Okay, maybe I don’t get out much. The orchestra was the Oakland East Bay Symphony conducted by Michael Morgan and they were wonderful. Watching them made me sad that music is no longer offered in school like it was when I was a kid. :(
Then the ballet began and my ADD flared up as I could not decide whether to watch the musicians, the ballet or the beautiful muscular butt of the «Spanish Chocolate» danseur, or ballerino, named Carlos Venturo. For the second time now, I was surprised how popular the Nutcracker’s theme music of Tchaikovsky is as I knew most of the songs and felt special until my son knew them too from his years of watching cartoons such as «Tom and Jerry.»
All of the dancers were beautiful and talented. The set was lovely and I was very fond of all the colors used in the back drops and how they accentuated the costumes perfectly.
In a time where our economy is in a huge slump and no one I know is very excited about Christmas, it was all very feel good. I’m happy to be able to expose my son to the arts amongst a diverse group of people, on a pre-​winter evening at the lovely Paramount theatre.
AND…one last shout out to the Chevron corporation who is a huge sponsor of the show. Their spokesperson help introduced the show while sharing that Chevron had donated some 2000+ tickets to local families as well as several other tickets to the Oakland school district. And if that were not enough, on the way out, we were all presented with a nice sized personal box of See’s candy…
…how SWEET is that! :)